Changelog
v2 -> v3
- Create patches 6/7 and 7/7 to work with an existing format of variable name
v1 -> v2
- Separate into 5 patches in accordance with Mike's comment
- Erase an extra line of comment in patch 1/5
[Issue]
Currently, efi_pstore driver simply overwrites existing panic messages in NVRAM.
So, in the following scenario, we will lose 1st panic messages.
1. kernel panics.
2. efi_pstore is kicked and writes panic messages to NVRAM.
3. system reboots.
4. kernel panics again before a user checks the 1st panic messages in NVRAM.
[Solution]
Solutions of this problem has been discussed among Tony, Matthew, Don, Mike and me.
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=134273270704586&w=2
And there are two possible solutions right now.
- First one is introducing some policy overwriting existing logs.
- Second one is simply holding multiple log without overwriting any entries.
We haven't decided the overwriting policy which is reasonable to all users yet.
But I believe we agree that just holding multiple logs is a reasonable way.
We may need further discussions to find the possibility of introducing overwriting
policy, especially getting critical messages in multiple oops case.
But I would like to begin with a simple and reasonable way to everyone.
So, this patch takes an approach just holding multiple logs.
[Patch Description]
(1/7) efi_pstore: Check remaining space with QueryVariableInfo() before writing data
(2/7) efi_pstore: Add a logic erasing entries to an erase callback
(3/7) efi_pstore: Remove a logic erasing entries from a write callback to hold multiple logs
(4/7) efi_pstore: Add ctime to argument of erase callback
(5/7) efi_pstore: Change a format of a variable name by adding a sequence counter
(6/7) efi_pstore: Add a format check for an existing variable name at reading time
(7/7) efi_pstore: Add a format check for an existing variable name at erasing time
Detailed explanations are written in each patch.
drivers/acpi/apei/erst.c | 16 +++---
drivers/firmware/efivars.c | 150 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
fs/pstore/inode.c | 7 ++-
fs/pstore/internal.h | 2 +-
fs/pstore/platform.c | 11 ++--
fs/pstore/ram.c | 9 +--
include/linux/efi.h | 1 +
include/linux/pstore.h | 6 +-
8 files changed, 133 insertions(+), 69 deletions(-)